Dead Weight (Cold Case Psychic Book 4) Read online

  DEAD WEIGHT

  By

  Pandora Pine

  Dead Weight

  Copyright © Pandora Pine 2018

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Digital Edition: April 2018

  PROLOGUE

  July…

  The room was dark and warm. The perfect place for evil to percolate, to grow and take root. He hadn’t always been bad, but right now he just couldn’t remember what it was like to be good, to be himself.

  He hadn’t felt right in only God knew how long now, but the doctor said he was fine, so he must be, right?

  The glow of the laptop lit his face as he flipped past image after image of the hero. Hero? Ha! Cold Case Detective Ronan O’Mara wasn’t a hero. He was a killer. A despoiler. A ruiner. He was the man who had ruined everything.

  You wouldn’t know it from the fake news websites like the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald, but if you knew where to look, the real truth was out there. The real story was out there waiting to be read. Absorbed. Digested. Made a part of himself.

  He wished he could write like that. Like those authors. Like him. It was his words that first made the boy notice the man. Now, all that was left of the man, the real hero, were his words.

  The boy shook his head. He hadn’t always thought the man was the hero. At first, he’d agreed with his brothers, with his family, that the cop was the hero, but now… Now things weren’t so black and white.

  The killing was a hit. A stone-cold murder. Just like Tupac. Just like Biggie. The man been brought down at the height of his brilliance when there was still so much more to do. So many more who deserved to suffer. Who deserved to die.

  It wasn’t only the other whores whose names were on the list, although there were plenty of lost boys whose names took up spaces in his notebook. There was the first boy. The one who got away. Greeley Hanks, now Fitzgibbon. He’d escaped twice. His name should be at the top of the list, but it wasn’t. The whore’s father was on the list too, Captain Kevin Fitzgibbon. The cop who took a bullet for the whore. He’d almost died. There wouldn’t be an almost this time around.

  Then there were the psychic and the cop. It had been a near-tie as to which asshole’s name would shoot to the top of the list. Funnily enough, it was that word, shoot, that determined who would end up in the prized number one spot.

  Psychic Tennyson Grimm had been the one to uncover the man’s dirty little secret. He’d spoken to the spirit of Justin Wilson which led to the discovery of the other bodies and then other secrets, which had unraveled like an ill-made afghan. The psychic worked with the cop, but it was the cop who stopped the game in its tracks. He was the one with the gun.

  Detective Ronan O’Mara was the one holding the smoking gun when it was all said and done. The man had two bullets lodged in his genius brain and it was the hero O’Mara who’d fired them. It was that fact alone that shot his name to the number one spot on the hit list.

  The boy traced his finger down the list he’d meticulously written out in his black, college-ruled notebook. He could feel the letters with his fingers almost like braille. The man had been specific with his instructions: The list must be made. The list must be kept hidden. The list must be a secret from everyone.

  A bubble of laughter escaped his tight throat. The sound was foreign. It had been so long since the boy had found anything worthy of laughing over. In the old days, he laughed all the time. His family had worried there was something wrong. They’d taken him to the doctor because he hadn’t been his usual self. He hadn’t been eating, sleeping, or laughing like he used to.

  There had been poking, prodding, and questions. Of course, the man helped him answer the questions. A few days later, he’d been stamped with a clean bill of health. The doctor had said something about the boy being a typical teenager.

  Typical? Ha! Ronan O’Mara, Tennyson Grimm, Kevin Fitzgibbon, Greeley Fitzgibbon, and the rest of the whores on the list would see just how typical he was. Boy, would they ever.

  1

  Ronan

  August…

  Cold Case Detective Ronan O’Mara stood on the sidewalk looking up at the two-story whitewashed brick row-house with the number 144 on it. The smile on his face was so big, his cheeks were aching from it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care or to wipe it off. “Ten, you coming or what?”

  Psychic Tennyson Grimm backed out of the trunk of his Chevy and raced to Ronan’s side. He joined the detective in staring up at the house. “I can’t believe we’re standing here. I can’t believe it’s ours!”

  “Me either.” It still felt like a dream to the thirteen-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.

  “Hey, these friggen boxes are heavy. Are you two Romeos gonna get a move on so we can take the picture or what?” Carson Craig, Tennyson’s best friend and partner at West Side Magick, shouted out.

  “God, your friends are bossy!” Ronan grinned at Tennyson and swung his fiancé into his arms. The click of iPhone shutters followed.

  Their friends continued taking pictures as Ronan carried Tennyson up the four brick stairs leading to the front door of the house. “Home, sweet, home.” Ronan grinned before carrying Tennyson over the threshold. He set his lover down in the empty entryway and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

  “You two have the rest of your lives to christen every room. It’s hot as balls out here. Can we get a move on?” Shouted Cole Craig, Carson’s brother, and third partner at the Magick shop.

  “When did our friends get so bitchy?” Ten giggled into the hollow of Ronan’s throat.

  “We did promise them beer and pizza for a job well done, right?” Ronan wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d made the offer. They’d been so busy over the last few days packing up their individual apartments and then signing a metric ton of paperwork at the attorney’s office, that they might have forgotten to sweeten the pot.

  “Shit, did we?” Ten’s mouth hung open like a fish out of water.

  “You go remind them. Or surprise them if we forgot to tell them. I’ll be out in a minute to help with the boxes, okay?” Ronan needed a few seconds to himself.

  Ten nodded and pressed a kiss to Ronan’s cheek before he headed back outside.

  Ronan walked from the empty hallway into the equally empty living room of his home. His and Tennyson’s home. This was a big step for them as a couple.

  Only having met each other eight months ago, Ronan could have never imagined that a tense introduction at the Magick store would lead to a romantic proposal seven months later and a home of their own a mere thirty days after that.

  With one divorce under his belt already, this was an even bigger step for the veteran detective. He and his first husband had never made it to home ownership. Somehow, it made Ronan’s relationship with Tennyson seem more important. More solid. They were really in it for the long haul now. The mortgage documents they’d signed this morning bound them to each other and this house for the next twenty-five years.

  Those words had scared Ronan half to death at first blush: twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. Hell, he’d be fifty-five years old when this three-bedroom brick townhouse was paid off. What had got the pen into his hand to sign his name on the papers was the thought that he’d be fifty-five years old anyway, so why not be a homeowner too?

  This little piece of the American Dream was
his and Tennyson’s future. They were going to start their married lives right here in this house. This would be where they celebrated their first Christmas as husbands. This would be the home their children would grow up in and would know they could always come home to if the real world got a little too real.

  “Hey, you gonna walk around in a fog all day or are you gonna help with the furniture?” Captain Kevin Fitzgibbon called out from the headboard of Ronan’s king-sized bed. His adopted son, Greeley, was bringing up the rear.

  Kevin Fitzgibbon was head of the Boston Police Department’s Cold Case Unit. Ronan had been working for him for nearly a year now. He’d never had a better working relationship with a supervisor in his career. It was thanks to the cap’s open-mindedness that Tennyson had been allowed to come on board the Boston Police Department as a consultant.

  Greeley Hanks, now Greeley Fitzgibbon, was a tough young man who’d nearly fallen victim to a vicious serial killer. He’d been able to outwit the killer and had helped Ronan and Tennyson track him down. Kevin had helped the teenager through rehab and had later adopted him.

  “I still can’t believe we bought a house!” Ronan started to laugh.

  “I hear you. Now go outside and help Ten with the mattress before he has a kitten.” Fitzgibbon smiled. “Which one is the master?”

  “First door on the left,” Ronan called before he ran out the front door just in time to help Tennyson haul the king-sized mattress out of the moving truck.

  “I still can’t believe we’re neighbors!” Truman Wesley slapped Ronan’s shoulder. “Okay, wife, you ready to haul this couch into the house or do you need five more minutes, princess?”

  “Just waiting on you, husband!” Carson Craig, Truman’s husband, sighed dramatically. Carson picked up his end of the sofa at the same time as Truman and they managed to get it into the house with no trouble.

  They weren’t neighbors exactly. Carson and Truman’s house was three doors down from the house Ronan and Tennyson bought. It was one of the reasons they’d jumped at the chance to buy this property. Listening to them squabble like this, Ronan was glad for the little bit of distance.

  “Why don’t we give them a bit of space to wrangle the couch?” Tennyson grinned from inside the moving truck.

  “You never know who your real friends are until you move.” Ronan had invited all of the other detectives from the Cold Case Squad, but none of them had showed up today. His old partner from his days working Homicide, Tony Abruzzi, was supposed to be here any second now.

  Tony and his wife, Carlie, had been by his side when he’d been shot in the line of duty last summer. They’d also been his support system when his first marriage ended. Recent empty nesters, they’d taken on four teenage foster sons a few months back during the Justin Wilson investigation. The boys had been Justin’s friends and had been living on the streets of Boston, making their way in the world by selling their bodies.

  The Abruzzis had gotten the boys back on track with their education and they’d be graduating with their GEDs by the end of the summer. Ronan was just thrilled to have four extra men to help unload the two moving trucks, one from each of their apartments.

  Ronan was about to reach up and grab the end of the mattress when his phone rang. “Hold on, babe.” He fished his phone out of his pocket and saw the caller ID listed the number as unknown. “O’Mara.” There was silence on the line and then a click. The phone beeped three times as the line disconnected.

  “Another hang up call?” Ten asked, frowning.

  Ronan shrugged. “Those damn spam calls.” Tennyson’s way of dealing with them was to not answer his phone if he didn’t recognize the phone number attached to the call, but Ronan couldn’t afford to do that. He gave out his business card to hundreds of people a year. He never knew when one of those people would pick up the phone and call him with some piece of information that would solve a cold case or with a cry for help.

  None of that mattered now anyway. There were more important things he and Tennyson needed to get done today. “You ready to do this, Ten?”

  “Let’s do this now, so we can do it later!” he laughed.

  Ronan couldn’t have said it any better himself.

  2

  Tennyson

  Thanks to the help of their friends, both moving trucks were unloaded and returned to U-Haul by dinnertime. Unfortunately, the unpacking party had lasted well into the night. By the time everyone had gone home, Tennyson was too tired and too sore from hauling boxes to think about doing more than kissing Ronan good night.

  Even though they were in a new place, being in their own bed made falling asleep much easier. Ten and Ronan had been asleep minutes after they’d crawled into bed.

  When Ten woke up Sunday morning, he was surprised to see how bright their east-facing bedroom was. The first thing on his wish list for the new house was going to be blackout shades, but for now, he was enchanted with the morning light.

  Shifting to his side, he could see that Ronan was still sound asleep. His husband-to-be was lying on his back with both arms pillowed behind his head. The sheet was pushed down to Ronan’s hips putting his broad chest with its sprinkling of blond hair on full display.

  Ten felt his dick twitch and start to rise. He’d never understand what Ronan, with his sandy blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, saw in him, but he wasn’t about to question that now. He scooted a bit closer to his sleeping lover, gliding the fingers of his left hand up Ronan’s naked thigh. The warm skin and crinkly hair made him shiver with desire.

  Ronan’s cock was already half-hard when Tennyson’s fingers brushed against it. Ronan always responded like that when Ten touched him. Their chemistry was always electric.

  Wrapping his fist around Ronan’s erection, Ten slid his hand from tip to root. He bit his lower lip to keep from moaning out loud. He didn’t want to wake Ronan up with his voice, he wanted his hand to do that for him.

  “Molesting me in my sleep, Grimm?” Ronan’s voice was sleep-thickened. A smile softened his features.

  “Am I breaking the law, officer?” Ten asked innocently.

  Ronan snorted. “Only if you stop doing what you’re doing.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to be a law breaker.” Ten grinned and used his free hand to tug the sheet down below Ronan’s erection. He loved how big it looked in his fist. A large bead of pre-come was dribbling out of the slit. Ten leaned forward to lap it up.

  “Fuck, that feels good.” Ronan set his hands on Ten’s head urging his lover to use his mouth.

  Ten didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He shifted his body so he could kneel between Ronan’s legs. Once he was settled, he used his hands to spread his lover’s legs. “Nice view,” he whispered before allowing Ronan’s hands to direct him down onto his shaft. Ten knew he was going all the way down.

  Gagging when he reached the root of Ronan’s cock, he let a bit of drool leak out of his mouth. He swiped his fingers through it and used it to lube Ronan’s hole. He felt his lover tense a bit when he tried to enter Ronan’s passage.

  Using his tongue on Ronan’s cock, Ten looked up at Ronan, whose eyes were so dark, they were almost black. Ten wiggled his finger again and was able to slip inside. Ronan was never very good at allowing him to breach his passage, so Ten knew he had to tread lightly.

  He wasn’t there to make Ronan feel uncomfortable. On the contrary, he was there to blow Ronan’s mind. As he slipped in a bit further, Ten found exactly what he was looking for: Ronan’s prostate.

  “Oh fuck!” Ronan cried. His hands came off Ten’s head to clutch his own. They fisted his hair as Ronan’s hips thrusted up into Ten’s mouth.

  Ten hummed around Ronan’s cock. He knew any discomfort his lover had previously felt was gone now. He rubbed his index finger against Ronan’s gland and was happy to use his tongue against his cock as Ronan fucked himself up into Ten’s mouth.

  Ronan’s hands came off his head to reach for Tennyson. Gripping his shoulders, Ronan inc
reased the pace of his hips. “Fucking… close,” he panted.

  His jaw aching, Tennyson opened his mouth a bit wider and tried to take as much of Ronan’s length into his throat as possible. With another few taps on Ronan’s prostate, his lover convulsed and roared out his name. Ten started to swallow as fast as he could.

  Ten knew this was going to be a bigger load than usual and was having a hard time keeping up with Ronan’s jerking cock. He could feel globs of Ronan’s release leaking out of the side of his lips.

  Ronan was going back and forth between saying Ten’s name and “I love you,” with the words sometimes in the wrong order.

  When Ronan’s cock finally stopped spasming, Ten released it and fell back on the bed beside his lover.

  “Holy shit!” Ronan snorted. “That was one hell of a wakeup call.”

  “Glad you liked it.” Ten grinned. He was thrilled at the idea that they were never going to have to spend another night apart.

  “What would you think about a Day of the Dead wedding?” Ronan asked out of the blue. He was still panting for breath.

  Tennyson blinked up at his fiancé. They hadn’t really talked at all about actually getting married since Ronan had proposed on the Fourth of July. Once Ten had said yes, they’d been busy looking for a house and having as much sex as was humanly possible. “Why Day of the Dead, because I’m a psychic and we live in Salem?”

  Ronan shifted over onto his side. He reached out to cup the side of Ten’s face. “I was thinking it would be nice to start our married life together on a day that celebrates loved ones that aren’t with us here in the physical world.”

  Blinking rapidly to keep the tears he felt forming from leaking out of his eyes, Ten tried to take a deep breath. He couldn’t believe what Ronan was suggesting. This was the same man who’d come into West Side Magick a mere eight months ago thinking that everything he believed in and did for a living was pure bullshit. “You know your mom and Bertha Craig will both be at our wedding no matter what day of the year we decide to do it, right?”